Eve
by omg-wtf.com
Summary: The character's reactions to one of those shocking events of BB


*****BITTER BLOOD SPOILERS!***  
I warned you. You'll know what's going on here if you've read the 13th book of the Morganville Vampires series :D and if you haven't, get out of here and down to a bookshop ASAP!**

X

"Take your _fucking _tongue out of my girlfriend's throat, you bloodsucking bastard!"

Eve watched the scene unfold, horrified. She was bawling her eyes out, with tears and snot running down her face and soaking her hospital gown. She was curled up on the bed, with her knees to her chest and her arms hugging them, even though she was supposed to be resting, because how was she supposed to rest when her _best friend_ was making out with her _husband_ with both of their partners in the room?!

Shane was pulling at Claire, with a murderous look in his eye, but Michael was too strong. He had just attacked Claire, was groping her, ignoring them both, and Claire was just _letting him do it. _

Finally, Claire pushed him away, screaming. Her top was bunched up under her bra, and she tugged at it. She looked to Shane, but he was looking at Michael, _glaring _at Michael. And Michael was _smirking._

"I've been wanting to do that for years. Just so you know. Did you see _that_ coming, best friend? Maybe it's been going on for a while. Maybe ever since she moved in. How do you know?"

"You son of a-" Shane pushed Claire and went for Michael, but Michael just held him against the wall, ignoring each blow. Eve desperately wanted one of Shane's punches to connect. She wanted Michael to hurt, in every way, like she did right now – the aching pain of fury in her head, breathlessness, and those awful bruises. The scar where her appendix had been taken out threatened to split, too. But all she could feel was the betrayal and the heartbreak.

"We're done?" Michael said, and she knew he was talking to her.

"Yes. Yes. Get out."

She closed her eyes after he left, and Shane turned on Claire. She tried to tune them out, but Claire playing the victim again was just too much.

"God, get out," she said, sounding as weak as she felt. "Just get out. Both of you." She could hear her monitors beeping, all of them, and she thought she might really be dying, dying of heartbreak. She looked. "Jesus, please, go!"

She heard more people coming in, and she curled up tighter – she just wanted to be alone. And then, suddenly, she was falling into a beautifully dreamless sleep.

X

She woke up, not knowing whether she'd slept minutes or days, and Shane was there, drenched in sweat like he'd just worked out. She automatically felt safer with him there – she trusted him. She'd thought the same of Michael and Claire, but they'd proved her so very wrong, and they'd broken Shane's heart just as much as they'd broken hers.

They looked at each other, and then Shane half-smiled and held up a bag of her clothes from the house. "I brought your collar, too, don't worry. Dog."

"You're the one that stinks, moron," she laughed weakly in response, and held her arms out for the bag. He didn't give it to her right away, just looked at her with mirrored sadness. Then he threw the bag lightly towards her, so that she flailed to catch it. He sniggered, and she shot him a dirty look, but she was smiling. She liked how he wasn't treating her like some delicate little princess. Like Michael would have. Like they did with Claire.

Suddenly the idea that they'd been cheating since the start became a lot more believable.

"Get dressed; I'm taking you home."

"Is – he there?"

"I don't know where he is, but his stuff's gone from the house."

Eve didn't know how she felt about that. "And her?"

He frowned. "She's still here. I'm taking you both back."

"Oh."

"I have to go do something after, so I told her to look after you. But you can call me if you need me."

"Thanks."

She wasn't looking forward to being alone with Claire, who would undoubtedly try to talk to her about what happened. Shane squeezed her hand and left her to get dressed. She did so slowly and painfully, not bothering with makeup and leaving her hair down as a curtain between her and the world.

As she dressed, alone for the first time since she'd woken up, she had time to think about why she was here in the first place. She hadn't had time to think about Roy Farmer and his lackeys kicking the crap out of her on the cold, hard pavement, and frankly she didn't want to. But the figurative door had been opened, so Eve sat down on her bed, black jeans only half pulled on around her knees and remembered.

It was hazy...she barely recalled the argument that had kicked off the attack, except for that it was about Michael. _Guess that's not a problem anymore,_ she thought bitterly. Then she was on the floor, and they were kicking and hitting and they wouldn't stop even after she went still, completely numb and bleeding to death. Right before she passed out, something else started to catch their attention. Claire. While before Eve had thought Claire was trying to lure them away, now it seemed as if she'd been running. Leaving her to die.

She limped out of her hospital room, where Shane was waiting with a wheelchair. She gave him a grateful, albeit small, smile and half-sat, half-fell into it, avoiding Claire's earnest eyes. _The fucking nerve! _The pain was back full-force, so she was quickly distracted from the mousy girl hurrying alongside the chair as Shane barrelled down the hallway. She vaguely heard a nurse giving instructions for medication, which she would refuse, because what was the point? Pain was an excellent distraction.

Then they were moving again, quicker than before, to the elevator. Eve couldn't even bring herself to smile as the doors closed in Claire's little face. Shane sniggered, though. She ignored him, because she knew he loved Claire like she loved Michael, and it would still hurt him to do that to her, despite what she had done.

She tuned out the car journey home, from the painful switch from wheelchair to car, all the way to being carried through the front door and put to bed on the sofa, that same sofa where her and her husband had just recently made love. _I wonder if he screwed _her _here, too. _It made her sick to lie there, but she was in too much pain to move. She could see that Michael's armchair was missing, and she closed her eyes and turned her head away.

Claire was sitting next to her, head back, and Eve could just sense that she was trying her hardest not to cry. "It's not your fault." She opened her eyes, and her former best friend's face was full of hope. She felt too bitter to care. "He had doubts all along; I knew that. I was just – stupid enough to think he was worried about me. "So maybe it's better we get it over with. It just hurts so much."

She wanted Claire to leave her alone then, leave her to wallow in her pain and misery, but she replied. "I don't know why he did..what he did, or why he said those things, but it isn't true, Eve. Please believe me."

She wanted to, really did, but she knew Michael too well to believe that he would make out with her best friend before her eyes, as she lay in a hospital bed, as a joke. She sighed and closed her eyes again. "All right. Doesn't matter."

She felt Claire's hand hold her own, and she didn't pull away, because it gave her some small comfort. Then Claire got up to answer her phone, and Eve was alone again. She cried herself to sleep – a horrible, disturbing sleep, the dreams not stopped by drugs this time.

She dreamt of high school, of those countless hours she'd just stared at Michael, seated across the classroom in all his toned, tanned, golden-haired perfection. She dreamt of the worst times, when Brandon was alive and she had to move out, and Michael took her in. She dreamt of slowly getting to know him, the _real _him, or so she'd thought; the sensitive, vulnerable side she'd rarely seen at school. She dreamt of their first kiss, and the first time they'd made love, and how gentle and caring he'd been. She dreamt of his beautiful music, the music he had such passion for, and how he'd promised her he loved her with as much passion, even more. She dreamt of his proposal, and the beautiful wedding they had planned but never got to have, but it was okay because all that mattered was that she was marrying her soulmate.

And then Claire woke her up to take her medication, and she had to let those dreams go.


End file.
